Matthew pointed at the photo. ‘Wasn’t this taken at the residence? I think I recognize the background from the video recordings.’
Thóra shifted her attention from the people to their surroundings. ‘I’ll be damned.’ Behind the trio she saw a whiteboard and a key cabinet like those on the wall of the night watchmen’s office. ‘Well, well. So they were having a party on work time after all. At least, this girl seems to be enjoying herself.’
They looked through more photos and even though most of them showed Friðleifur in other environments, there were several of him at the care home, either with Margeir or with other unfamiliar young people of a similar age. The guests were generally dressed up to the nines. One or two were holding beers. There was no sign that they were roaming freely through the building; most of the photos appeared to have been taken in the same room, and none of them showed any of the residents or visitors in costume – neither an angel nor anything else.
‘This is one of the strangest things I’ve seen.’ Matthew leaned back in his chair.
‘Yes, I agree. Still, this explains why Friðleifur’s sister hasn’t called me. Sveinn mentioned how she’d smelled of alcohol, so she’d been partying like these people, no doubt – but pretending to come and visit with her friends in order to help.’ Thóra continued to examine the photos. ‘Now I understand why that woman who lived in the neighbourhood spoke of the street being noisy at night on weekends. It also explains why the residents at the centre weren’t always very happy; they could hardly have slept well through that all that mayhem, even if it didn’t happen every night.’ Thóra leaned back thoughtfully. ‘There must have been something to attract these people into coming all that way; the place wasn’t exactly easy to get to. Either Friðleifur and Margeir were really popular, or they had something that people wanted when they were out partying. One thing’s for sure, though – the number of people eligible to be the father of Lísa’s child is rather higher than I first thought.’
Chapter 29
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Thóra felt as if her thoughts were bouncing back and forth inside her brain. It didn’t matter how much she tried to organize them and think logically; one thought was always stronger than the others: who had sent her the message? She scrutinized the photos on Friðleifur’s Facebook memorial page and pored over every face, as if one might hold the answer to her question. Yes, it was me! Whoever it was had to be connected to the case; given what she had seen in the photos, there was no other possible explanation. But she couldn’t for the life of her understand why this mysterious person couldn’t simply call her or send her a detailed explanation of what he knew. He either had to be guilty of something in connection with the case, or else he was some oddball who got his kicks out of teasing her with scraps of information.
In front of her was a sheet of paper on which she’d scribbled all the leads she had uncovered, but there was disappointingly little of any use in it. Of course there had to be some simple explanation of events; things didn’t happen by themselves or through a series of coincidences, but the problem was, as so often, in distinguishing the wheat from the chaff. Until that happened, all the names, places and things she had been told would remain one great big jumble of information in which everything appeared equally important. She was reminded of what the IT technician had said when he came to repair the office Internet server. He’d spent most of the day on his repairs and said that it would take no time at all to fix the fault once he found it; the problem lay in identifying it. And that was indeed how it went – as soon as he found the problem, his job was pretty much done. Maybe she should call him. Getting the opinion of a stranger was surely no crazier a strategy than any other, even though an IT guy might not be the most appropriate stranger to pick. She dialled the extension of her partner, Bragi, but he must have been out of the office as Bella picked up the phone after several rings. Thóra asked if she knew when Bragi was due in and received the answer she’d expected; Bella had no idea, and she didn’t care one bit. After hanging up on the employee of the month, Thóra decided to try once more to reach Ari. Again, he didn’t answer the phone, which got on Thóra’s nerves even more.
She realized it was pointless spending any more time mulling over her scribbles, so she went online in the hope of finding further news of the man who’d been found dead in Nauthólsvík. Information turned out to be rather scarce, but it had been confirmed that he was a male in his twenties, and that he was not considered to have died of natural causes.
The police clearly wanted to say as little as possible about the case, but the news report concluded that they were still trying to identify the deceased. Thóra found this puzzling; it didn’t usually take long to find these things out. Maybe the dead man was a foreigner, after all, and it was pure coincidence that Margeir’s phone had been found in the same place – if she was right about that. It would be absurd, yes, but not impossible. The fact that the police hadn’t called her in for questioning even though she had recently called Margeir might simply indicate that he and his phone weren’t associated with the death of the man reported in the news – or that the police were just busy with other things. Disappointed that there was no more to learn on the subject, she went back to the main page of the website and saw that a new story had been added while she’d been reading.
The headline read serious assault at sogn. Thóra was actually rather surprised that Jósteinn and Jakob’s conflict hadn’t been leaked sooner. The story was neither long nor detailed and consisted of a brief description of the incident and Jakob’s injuries. An employee of Prison Services was quoted as saying that he didn’t want to comment on the matter, and the same went for the doctor on duty at Sogn. Brief mention was made of Jakob and Jósteinn’s previous crimes; neither of them was identified by name, but it was specified that one of them suffered a mental disability. It was, by and large, a factual and neutral account – except for the line describing the attack as gratuitous and unusually vicious. Still, Thóra doubted that Jósteinn would lose much sleep over that. Her attention was drawn by the statement that the two men’s continued custody at Sogn was in doubt due to the risk of subsequent attacks, and she was particularly interested to read that the decision concerning their institutionalization was being finalized. This must mean Jakob might soon be released from hospital.
She looked at the clock. It was still two hours before her scheduled meeting with the sheriff regarding the divorce of a couple who had finally agreed to share their debt burden equally. As so often in these cases, they had managed to re-establish a civil relationship and might even end up as friends. She had plenty of time to drop in on Jakob. There was a fair chance of him being sent to Akureyri, almost 400 kilometres from Reykjavík, and with the weather the way it was she was very keen to avoid having to drive cross-country to speak to him. She really ought to visit him while they were still only a few minutes away from each other.
The sterile smell from Jakob’s bandages was not immediately noticeable, but after nearly an hour it had managed to work its way so thoroughly into Thóra’s senses that she felt she was suffocating. ‘Don’t you find the air a bit close in here, Jakob? Should I open the window a bit?’ She looked hopefully at him and pointed at the curtains, which had been drawn so that they could see the laptop screen better. Thóra had taken it with her in the hope that Jakob might know someone on the memorial page for Friðleifur.
‘No, no. I’m cold.’ Jakob pushed his thick glasses back into place. They seemed incapable of sitting properly on his nose and kept slipping down. Every time she looked at them she wondered who had chosen the frames and when the glasses had actually been bought. If she’d had to guess, she’d have said they were originally bought by Tootsie in the early 80s. ‘OK, never mind. Shall we look at the next photos?’ Thóra smiled at Jakob, who seemed relieved that she wasn’t going to press the issue with the window. It was fair enough; her wool sweater was light but warm, and he was in a short-sleeved T-shirt marked Nationa
l Hospital Laundry Room. His bedcover was thin, as well – it looked like a blanket enclosed in a duvet cover.
‘Good. I don’t want to get a cold. Mummy says that’s bad when you’re injured like I am.’
‘She’s quite right.’ Thóra couldn’t help but smile again. The impassioned way in which he communicated was infectious and it made a refreshing change to speak to someone who was genuinely interested in whatever she said to him. ‘Well, do you recognize anyone in these pictures?’
‘Umm, yes.’ Jakob moved nearer the screen. ‘No. That one looks just like that actor.’
‘Yes, he does a bit.’ Until now Jakob had recognized no one except the two night watchmen, Margeir and Friðleifur. That didn’t prevent him from scrutinizing every photo with the same concentration as he had the first. ‘How about in this one?’ Thóra chose the next photo, which had been taken at the residence.
‘Yes!’ Jakob poked the screen repeatedly, so hard that the fabric of it rippled slightly. Thóra didn’t dare do anything but inch the computer away from him. ‘Friðleifur! Again!’
‘Yes, that’s him. We don’t actually need to think about him, remember? Or about Margeir. If you recognize someone besides those two, let me know.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He looked at Thóra and seemed pleased with her expression, perhaps fearing that she would be frustrated with him. ‘Can I still ask you one thing?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do I get to go home now? I’ve been hurt and I don’t want to go back to Sogn. I should get to go home, I think.’
‘I think so too, Jakob.’ It didn’t surprise Thóra that he should mention this. ‘I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to, but I don’t think it’s going to happen very soon, unfortunately.’
Jakob looked sadly into her eyes. ‘What does hopeful mean? Good hope?’ Suddenly his face broke into a smile.
‘Yes. It means exactly that. I have a good hope that you’ll get to go home, which means that I think it will happen one day. Then someone will call you and say: “Hey, Jakob! You know what? You can go home today!”’ Thóra placed her palm on the rough back of his hand. ‘But it won’t be today and not tomorrow. Later. Hopefully.’
Jakob nodded and his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose again. He pushed them into place, looking tired. His wounds were still healing and in order to see the screen he needed to raise himself up onto his elbow in bed. ‘Can I see more photos, maybe?’
‘Certainly.’ Thóra selected the next photo. In it were Friðleifur, Margeir and an unfamiliar man, making faces at the camera, sticking out their tongues through their upright index fingers and little fingers. She had seen numerous photos of her own children doing this. She still had no idea what was so clever about it, but supposed she ought to be grateful that such a ridiculous pose hadn’t been popular in her youth.
Jakob laughed briefly when he saw what was in the picture. ‘Silly!’ He tried to imitate the pose, not very successfully.
‘I agree.’
Jakob dried his wet fingers and turned back to the screen. ‘Hey, I know this girl.’
Thóra leaned in for a closer look. She had thought that the photo was of three men, but it could be that she’d misinterpreted it and that the night watchmen’s guest was a young woman. However, this wasn’t the case – the goatee on the unknown man standing between Friðleifur and Margeir made that much clear. ‘Do you mean this man? Friðleifur?’
‘No. We’d stopped counting him, remember? I’m talking about this one.’ He wasn’t pointing at one of the trio, but rather at a person in the background who Thóra hadn’t noticed.
She bent even closer to the screen and saw from the profile that it was a young woman. ‘Who is this, Jakob?’
‘It’s Friðleifur’s friend.’ He smiled broadly, extremely pleased with himself.
‘Do you know her name?’
The smile disappeared. ‘Don’t remember.’ He became agitated and squirmed in the bed.
‘But you met her at the residence? When she visited Friðleifur, maybe?’
‘No, no.’ Jakob pushed his glasses so close to his face that the top part of his nose whitened.
‘So you didn’t see her at the residence?’ Thóra thought he must be mistaking her for someone else.
‘Yes, she was there. But not visiting Friðleifur. She was just his friend. She was visiting her brother. Tryggvi.’
Suddenly the disinfectant smell seemed to vanish and Thóra instinctively sat up straight. ‘Lena?’
Jakob slammed his hand down hard on the bedframe. ‘That’s right!’
Thóra buried her face in her hands over the same scrawled-on piece of paper that she’d left behind on the table when she’d gone to visit Jakob. Matthew was lying on the sofa that he’d claimed for himself in her office. ‘What’s wrong?’ He shifted the embroidered cushion that he’d placed under his head. ‘Isn’t this a good thing? Now you’ve got a witness who can testify to what went on there – though there’s no way I’m speaking to her again.’
Thóra sighed. ‘I’m glad someone’s happy.’ She looked up. ‘I’ll talk to her, that’s not a problem. I’m just trying to understand what this means. Was she just there on a normal visit as a friend of Friðleifur, or was she there to get – or do – whatever made the care home as desirable an after-hours nightspot as the photos suggest?’
‘She’ll be able to give you an answer to that, surely.’
‘Probably. But there’s something else bothering me.’
‘Oh?’ Matthew had closed his eyes. He had stopped at Thóra’s office on his way back from the gym because he knew that Thóra’s meeting with the sheriff would be over. It had actually taken less time than anticipated; the former couple had been too depressed to bother committing themselves much, since their debt was huge, even though they were planning to share the burden.
‘I don’t know, maybe I should have contacted the police.’
‘Because of the photo of Lena?’ Matthew asked, surprised.
‘No, not that. I’m going to talk to her about that first. If something comes of it, then hopefully it won’t be long before I can formally request a reopening of the case. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she also knows, or at least suspects, something about who abused Lísa. That way I could start putting together a complete theory of what happened there.’
‘Then why are you wondering about the police?’
‘Precisely because of Lísa.’ Thóra turned the computer screen towards Matthew. ‘What if there’s a picture of the man on this site? They could make use of it in their investigation of the abuse.’ She saw that he didn’t quite get it. ‘We let Ragna look at the photos, do you get it? Show them to her one by one.’
‘Aren’t you obliged to tell the police? Is there even any question about that?’
‘Yes I am, but I’m worried they wouldn’t tell me the outcome and then the opportunity to help Jakob by discovering who really started the fire will slip out of my grasp.’
‘If they find out that way, they wouldn’t hide it from you, would they? You’d be given the information.’
‘Not necessarily. They’ve already looked into it once, with Lísa, so there’s bound to be some reluctance to rekindle the investigation. Ragna isn’t exactly an ordinary victim and it’s not at all clear whether she’d want to press charges or communicate with the police.’
‘Call the police. Then visit Ragna afterwards and ask her what she told them. She knows you’re trying to help Jakob, so she shouldn’t be trying to hide anything from you.’
Thóra picked up the phone. Sometimes it was best just to go for it. She dialled the number of the police station and asked to speak to the same man she’d spoken to before. Some time passed before his voice came on the line. He didn’t seem particularly enthralled to hear from her and clearly expected her to try to get something from him regarding the investigation of the case concerning Margeir’s phone. However, she knew that would be a waste of time and instead got straight to t
he point, as much as she could with a case so hard to explain. It was easier said than done to explain to him that a burnt-down community residence for the disabled out in the middle of nowhere had once been a party den, and that on a Facebook page set up in memory of one of the people who’d died there, they would probably find some photos of a man who made a habit of sexually abusing paralysed girls.
The response she got was probably a reflection of how bizarre the whole thing sounded. ‘You know, I’m really busy with something else at the moment so I can’t promise anything. If I’ve understood you correctly, this girl’s not going anywhere any time soon, so there’s probably no great rush. But I’ve made a note of what you’ve said and we’ll look into it when things slow down. I doubt it’ll be this week, but next week, hopefully.’
Thóra hung up and turned to Matthew. ‘Come on, we need to stop off at a florist’s. Let’s go to the hospital. Jakob can’t hang around waiting for the police to find time for this.’
On the sofa, Matthew sighed deeply.
Chapter 30
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Jósteinn removed the processor from a computer that he’d taken apart and placed it on a plastic tray. His plastic gloves were making his hands sweaty and he desperately wanted to remove them and scratch until the top layer of skin dissolved into little particles that he could sweep off the table top into the bin. That bin, a poisonous green colour, had got on his nerves ever since he’d gained access to this room several years earlier. He had long ago stopped keeping track of how much time he’d done at Sogn; the number of years might as well be the number of stars in the sky. If he were to count them down, things might look different, but here he would remain until he either kicked the bucket or got so decrepit that the authorities no longer believed him capable of perpetrating a crime. Neither of these visions of the future was to his liking, but this didn’t keep him awake at night; here he had his computers, and he understood them much better than the people who would otherwise be getting in his way in the world outside.
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